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Philosophies on how to approach things in life, for example Open Source Versus Closed, run in cycles. In the 1970s hobbyists would be carefully typing BASIC code from there enthusiast magazine. Commodore, Apple or the highest podge of C/PM machines.

Open Source went out of fashion (relatively speaking) with the emergence of DOS and Microsoft. In terms of absolute numbers, Open Source actually grew. It was the relative percentage in the overall digital world with major players doing proprietary code that made it look like Open Source was old-fashioned.

Coinciding with Microsoft starting several years of development work on ‘Chicago’ (Windows 95) Linux started to gain some real traction in the shadows. In my opinion this is only because the attempts to create (again) a Unified UNIX in the late 1980s failed (again).

We find ourselves where we are today because there are two types of computer users. Some of us like the joy of figuring something out, while others merely see it as something to get something else done. There are a few of us that do the former to help the latter. I’m one of those few.

I am keenly aware of the fact that readers here are solidly in the former camp and do not understand those in the latter camp.